Carmen Richardson Rutlen on Midlife Magic

The Finding Magic in Midlife Radio Show was produced and archived by Exceptional Wisdom Radio from August 2008 through June 1013, when EWR went off the air. I’m moving the show archives to Choosing To Be Fit because much of the wisdom I’ve gained about creating a body- mind-spirit fitness lifestyle came from reading books by and talking with these exceptional midlife women. The interviews are timeless. I hope you will get to know some of these brilliant, talented, and inspirational women and learn from them as I did.

If you would like to know more about the history of the Finding Magic in Midlife show, just click on the “Finding Magic” menu tab at the very top of this page. Or to get a complete list of all the interviews with links to each one, click here:Midlife Magic

Carmen Richardson Rutlen was interviewed on the Finding Magic in Midlife Show in April of 2009.

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Carmen Richardson Rutlen is an award winning author and owns a successful advertising agency, Richardson Rutlen Advertising, in Los Gatos, California. Her book, Dancing Naked in Fuzzy Red Slippers has been translated into Korean and has won two national book awards, including the prestigious Benjamin Franklin Award as well as the BAIPA award for “Book of the Year” in Humor and Inspiration.

Carmen has lived all over the world, including Germany, Okinawa and Venezuela. Through this extensive international exposure she can count to ten in all three of those languages. Carmen describes herself as a “hot blooded Spaniard” and although her mother’s parents did hail from Spain, her father was Danish and as such, she is more precisely a “Spandinavian.”

Carmen majored in Psychology and attended too many junior colleges to mention. She did not, however, graduate as her dating life consistently took precedence over her homework. Through sheer determination and strength of will she found a way to continue her studies in psychology as an independent researcher by just watching people, like her friends and people at the mall, on a case by case basis. She has not written a formal treatise on her informal research and consequently is not accredited in this field in any way. (Unless, of course, you count Dancing Naked…in fuzzy red slippers as a psychological treatise of sorts.)

Carmen was recently interviewed on ABC’s “View from the Bay,” by Spencer Christian, of Good Morning America fame, and Janelle Wang. She was a nervous wreck, but did okay. Carmen has done numerous media interviews on radio and television as well as for magazines and newspapers. She was a nervous wreck then too, but also did okay. Carmen was awarded “the Celebrity Award” from the National League of American Penwomen for her newspaper column, “The Prune Picker.” While she was proud of this award, she was hoping for a nice trophy, but was given a little red felt cut-out of an owl as her prize. Sadly, her dogs got to it.

On a personal note and worthy of mention, Carmen was awarded the coveted title of “Queen of the Voyage” on the USS Breckenridge on its trip from Okinawa to San Francisco in 1964. Additionally, in 1963 she was runner up to “Miss Okinawa of the Yacht Club” along with fourteen other girls who were also runners up. (It turned out that the girl who sold the most tickets to the event was given the Yacht Club’s winning title. Carmen did not know that or she would have sold more tickets.)

At 60, Carmen is smack dab in the middle of middle age. (Assuming she’s going to live to 120.) She thinks it’s time to have some fun.